HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE G9 



local travel, ofteu as branches to accommodate local 

 traffic. jSTow the automobile truck and bus lines are 

 cutting into the business of the electric and also of 

 the steam lines for local business, and by reason of 

 their elasticity are able to reach out into strictly rural 

 districts that were formerly very much handicapped 

 because of lack of transportation facilities. All these 

 means of travel have stimulated agricultural produc- 

 tion but when coupled with tlieir application to the re- 

 mainder of the country have brought trying indus- 

 trial problems through the wider range of competi- 

 tion. 



TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT 



The territorial expansion and organization of the 

 State are somewhat intricate to trace in any complete 

 way because the boundaries of the counties were 

 changed from time to time and several counties were 

 often made from a single earlier one. Much of the 

 original ownership of the land by the white men 

 rested on large grants by European crowns, or pur- 

 chases from the Indians, and on claims of the more 

 eastern colonies. 



In the Hudson Valley the Dutch Patroons and the 

 English Manor estates occupied large tracts and de- 

 velojK^d an agricultural tenantry. But in a country 

 with so much cheap land, such a system could not be 

 very exacting as to rents. Long-time leases were 

 given and in the end the landlord was so far separated 

 from his land that by the end of the period, when he 

 came to claim his due, the tenant who had in the 



